Until every one comes home | The Magazine of the USO

January 16, 2014 11:31AM

Minutes after Florida State University quarterback Jameis
Winston led his team to victory in the Bowl Championship Series
championship game on Jan. 6, he was conducting a post-game
interview with a reporter on national television.

During the interview, with cameras and reporters surrounding
him, Winston gave a shout out to his cousin, Army Specialist T’Ola
Winston, a 4th Infantry Division soldier currently serving at
Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan.

Army Specialist T’Ola Winston poses for a picture with her cousin Jameis Winston after his team, Florida State University, defeated the University of Miami in November. Photo courtesy of Specialist T’Ola Winston “My cousin in Afghanistan [is]
watching this game -- T’Ola Winston,” he said.

Thousands of miles away, T’Ola, who indeed was in Afghanistan
watching the game, smiled in joy. It was joy not for herself --
after all, not everybody gets a shout-out on national television
immediately following one of the biggest sports events of the year
-- but joy for her cousin Jameis, or “Jaboo” as she calls him.

“In that moment, it’s beyond words,” T’Ola said. “You can’t even
explain the joy I felt for him, knowing how hard he works.”

T’Ola is a signal support systems specialist who joined the U.S.
Army in January 2011. She is currently stationed at Fort Carson,
Colo., with Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, 4th Infantry
Division, and she deployed to Afghanistan -- her first deployment
-- as an orderly room clerk.

T’Ola, who considers Hueytown, Ala., and Bessemer, Ala., as her
hometowns, is also an athlete; she played basketball at Bevill
State Community College.

After she received her associate degree at age 22, she
considered joining the military -- something she says had been a
big desire.

After her friends and family talked her out of it, however, she
later became a substitute teacher and an assistant basketball coach
for Hueytown Middle School -- at the same time Jameis Winston was a
student there.

Years later, in 2011, she finally decided to join the U.S.
Army.

“I was 28, and it was a now-or-never type of deal for me,” she
said. “I decided to follow my desire.”

It is a decision she is glad she made. She even added an extra
year of service to her contract during the deployment and would
like to serve in the military for the long term, she said.

“We live in the greatest country in the world, and serving in
the military is a good thing to do,” T’Ola said. “The military has
been a great experience for me. I’ve enjoyed it.”

--Antony Lee is with International Security
Assistance Force Regional Command South

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